The Web is no longer static pages of text and still images. It's alive with tweets, tweetups, live video conferences, uStreams, live-blogged product launches, webinars, live auctions, virtual world meetups and events, time-limited sales and contests, live audio and video podcast recordings, live chats, and more. And it's all happening in real-time. If you happen to be online during one of these events, then you're a part of the action, a part of the now-ness of the new Web. But if you log off for a minute (gasp!), you could miss it all.
What's the solution? Stay up all night? A new startup launching this week called Live Matrix has a better idea. Live Matrix is your program guide to the real-time Web, allowing you to search, save and create reminders for all the live Web events you want to be a part of.
When people think of the real-time Web, they often think only of the "breaking news" aspect. The blog post that just went live with the details of the next-gen iPhone found in a bar. The tweets from ground zero of some big natural disaster. The new Web service that just opened its doors to the public.
However, a lot of the real-time Web is planned in advance. It's the product launch you've been waiting for, the daily video podcast you like to watch recorded live, the Second Life meetup that you've known about for a week.
Live Matrix wants to help you better manage these types of scheduled events. It's the "TV Guide" for the Web. And unlike a lot of startups launching these days, it doesn't have us saying, "Hmm, that's interesting," - it has us saying, "Wow! I needed that!"
The service was co-founded by Sanjay Reddy, whose experience has spanned across industries from banking to animation - in addition to an SVP position at Gemstar-TV Guide, makers program guide technology and publishers of the well-known printed mag, "TV Guide" - and Nova Spivack, a longtime Web entrepreneur who gave us Dice and the brilliant, but ultimately overly complex Twine.com, a semantic Web application that was eventually acquired by another semantic-focused startup, Evri.
But where Twine was confusing and poorly organized, Live Matrix is simple and straightforward. Perhaps that's due the company's decision to use an outside design firm. Whatever the reason, it works.
In fact, there's isn't even a need to explain how to use it. You've used search engines and program guides before; you'll figure it out.
But we will mention the service's many standout features:
In the works is an alerting feature that would let you track events based on keyword or interest (e.g. "shoes," "Apple," etc.) and more advanced analytics.
Live Matrix is in closed private beta right now, but you can sign up to join via the website.
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The Web is no longer static pages of text and still images. It's alive with tweets, tweetups, live video conferences, uStreams, live-blogged product launches, webinars, live auctions, virtual world meetups and events, time-limited sales and contests, live audio and video podcast recordings, live chats, and more. And it's all happening in real-time. If you happen to be online during one of these events, then you're a part of the action, a part of the now-ness of the new Web. But if you log off for a minute (gasp!), you could miss it all.